New shock­ing Fifa claim

ZURICH — Fifa are in­ves­ti­gat­ing claims that a ju­nior mem­ber of staff was told to fal­sify of­fi­cial records of meet­ings of the world gov­ern­ing body’s ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee be­tween 2001 and 2010.

The in­cen­di­ary ac­cu­sa­tion was made via Twit­ter by former Fifa em­ployee Scott Bur­nett, a Bri­ton who worked as a trans­la­tor then to Fifa’s cur­rently sus­pended sec­re­tary gen­eral, Jerome Val­cke, for nine years in to­tal.

“I wrote the min­utes of Fifa Exco meet­ings from 2001 to 2010. Dur­ing that pe­riod, I was in­structed sev­eral times to mis­rep­re­sent dis­cus­sions,” Bur­nett wrote on the so­cial net­work­ing site.

Bur­nett did not pro­vide any more de­tails but with Fifa in a state of per­pet­ual cri­sis, the claim will in­crease con­cerns about mal­prac­tice at the high­est lev­els over a long pe­riod of time.

Fifa’s pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter (pic­tured) is cur­rently sus­pended as the ethics com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gates the cir­cum­stances in which he sanc­tioned a £1.3m ‘pay­ment to Uefa pres­i­dent and Fifa vice-pres­i­dent Michel Pla­tini, in 2011. Pla­tini — who, like Blat­ter, was an Exco mem­ber — is also sus­pended from Fifa, as is Val­cke.

A Fifa spokesper­son said of Bur­nett’s claim: “Th­ese are very se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions. They will be re­viewed as part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion cur­rently be­ing con­ducted by Fifa with the as­sis­tance of out­side coun­sel.”